


Dandelion

by Kukla6



Category: ANDERSEN Hans Christian - Works, Den grimme Ælling | The Ugly Duckling - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 04:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12597820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kukla6/pseuds/Kukla6
Summary: Everyone knows the story of the ugly duckling who turned out to be a swan raised by ducks who were assholes.And many of us have had the experience of feeling as though we were born to the wrong people, or have otherwise felt displaced in some way.But what if the duckling was actually a duckling?





	Dandelion

She was yellow, just like her siblings. She had webbed feet and a bill for a beak, and bright shiny eyes. She looked just like any other duck. But for some reason, her sisters didn't snuggle her when it was time to sleep. Her brothers didn't share with her when they found something nice to eat. Her mother didn't even tuck her under the wing like she did the others. Any time they all snuggled down together to sleep, she found herself pushed to the outside.

"Momma, how come I have to sleep on the outside?" she asked once.   
Her mother replied, "Well, I can't keep track of every single one of you. If your brothers and sisters push you out, burrow back in."

She almost drowned, the first time they took her swimming. She waddled into the pond with her brothers and sisters, and while they floated, her feathers soaked with water. She managed to get back to the muddy bank and chirped at her mother.  
"Stay on shore until we finish our swimming lesson," her mother quacked at her, exasperated.

She fluffed her feathers as much as she could to dry off. A group of human people came to the pond and her brothers and sisters swam farther away, quacking nervously. As the humans approached, she decided to be brave. "Quack?" she said to them.

One of the smaller humans made excited noises and put out a hand.

"Quack quack" she said, and sniffed tentatively at the fingers.

Suddenly, the human people began to pelt her with small objects. She was afraid until she could smell what they were throwing.

It was bread. Sweet, soft, bite-sized pieces of tasty bread!  
She had never been able to get to the bread thrown to her family before, so she gleefully gobbled up her fill. 

Starlings from the trees flew down and tried to take her bread away.  
"Hey," she quacked. "This food is for me!"  
"Oh, yeah?" chirped the starlings.  
"Yeah. Though... I'll tell you what," she said thoughtfully, "I'm not sure I can eat it all myself. Be nice and I'll share it with you?"  
The starlings conferred with one another and then agreed. "We'll be nice to you if you give us bread."  
"No, that's not what I meant. Be nice to each other. I see you pecking on each other over food and it bothers me."  
The starlings stared at her, but bobbed their heads. "Uh, sure. Nice to each other. We can do that."  
And the duckling and the starlings shared the bread, and ate their fill.

When her momma returned with the other ducklings, she got a scolding. "You can't just walk up to humans like that. They want to eat you up!"

"But they fed me, they didn't eat me." 

One of the starlings chirped from a nearby tree, "Hey, Duckmom. Be nice!"   
Another picked up the chant. 'Yeah, BE NICE."  
A mockingbird flew by and was delighted by the new game. "BE NICE BE NICE BE NICE!!"

Soon several other birds joined in the chorus.

One of her sisters waddled up to her. "Um. I'm sorry if we weren't nice to you." She snuggled close to the duckling.

One of her brothers came up and quacked, "Yeah, uh, sorry?" And he snuggled her, too.

Pretty soon all the other ducklings were snuggled close to her, warming her up. Finally, her momma burrowed her way into the cluster of ducklings and wrapped her wings around them.

The next time Dandelion found herself on the outside of the snuggle pile, she waddled off to find another family of birds. She found the swans and snuggled in with them. In the morning the mother swan was startled to see her there. "Little miss duck, are you lost?" the mother swan asked.

"Sort of. Sometimes there's not room for me with my own family."

The swanlings snickered at her but their mother shushed them. "If you need a place to sleep there is plenty of room with us."  
"Why, momma?" asked one of the swanlings.   
"Because she's the one who taught the starlings to get along. You could learn a thing or two from her."

One night she went looking for the swans but found geese instead. It was just a few goslings and a big momma goose. She burrowed in with them and slept all night. In the morning the momma goose honked at her angrily, but one of the goslings wrapped his wing around her. "Momma, be nice. She didn't hurt anyone or cause trouble. I was warm because she was here."

As she grew older, she learned to swim from the swans, and she learned to fly from the starlings. She flew faster and farther and more gracefully than the other ducks, and wound up teaching the geese how to swoop and dive perfectly. 

And so it was that the duckling her own people didn't seem to want found a home with all the other birds.


End file.
